Assignment 1-3-2 - Journal Article Analysis

Journal Article Analysis

Turtle Power!: How Four Mutant Teenagers Nuked the Entertainment Industry by John Bisges

One of my favorite cultural icons growing up during the late 80s early 90s was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  From their humble origins in comic books to the transition to a popular cartoon on television, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise began to take America by storm reaching a fever pitch with the release of a full length real life feature film in 1990 titled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the sequel in 1991 called TMNT II: The Secret of the Ooze.  In this article John Bisges analyzes the impact of the TMNT phenomena (through their movies) on our culture, what these popular culture icons represent, and how this series was a reflection of our own society and culture at that point in time with acknowledgement of real world events that had affected American culture shortly before the TMNT presence in our mainstream media.

John first analyzes the nuclear related origins of the Ninja Turtles and what messages did this have on our culture at that time.  The TMNT were not the first characters to gain special powers through mutation, in fact mutation is not a new topic in the world of comic book characters.  For example, in the X-Men series most of the characters have powers through genetic mutations where they are represented as unusual leaps in human evolution that are uncommon.  In the case of the TMNT origins, these characters gain their powers from direct exposure to nuclear waste from a discarded canister.  The turtles (ordinary turtles at first) and Splinter (their mentor and a rat) gain rapid humanoid growth and intelligence due to exposure from discarded nuclear material given credence to a more positive “spin” on the effects of living in a nuclear age where accidents involving nuclear waste/materials can be commonplace (Bisges, 2008).

John points out how the series portrays radioactivity as a mysterious force that can give you powers in contrast to the views of the American culture during the 1950s where this topic was something that was thought of fearfully.  This of course, is logical because unlike the turtles who gained intelligence and rapid growth, human exposure to radioactivity would result in sickness and certain death.  He further draws an interesting similarity on how these characters grow and gain powers which they use to “save the day” using their newfound powers in comparison to the attitudes of countries that found the power of radioactive materials in the form of nuclear weapons.  Unfortunately, these countries did not always have such a positive attitude in spite of this new “power”.  

The TMNT main antagonist is the Shredder (not mutated, normal human, from Japan), who forms a group of loyal teenagers to engage in criminal activity and follow his leadership.  John ties this character as some communist dictator who demands the sacrifice of individualism for the good of the group which is what the Shredder expected from his followers demanding fierce loyalty.  In the film, the turtles easily defeat the Shredder, which John concludes represents newly formed nuclear power of the United States in response to Japan at the conclusion of World War II.  He also finds it interesting that in this story, the carelessness of having nuclear waste left in a populated area is not a negative but rather a positive since this is the source of the humans salvation in the form of the turtles “saving the day” instead of the whole death by radiation exposure thing.

I think the authors view on this popular culture subject was very interesting and I agree with the conclusions that he came up with comparing our culture and social attitude to this series and what it represented even though the portrayal was overt in nature.  Growing up, I (along with numerous other kids) simply thought it was form of entertainment with cleverly marketed characters that gained prominence from a simple cartoon to pop culture icons that spawned a lucrative franchise.  Of course, there was no way I would understand (at that point in time at my age) the cultural impact and messages that this series had on American culture.  He draws upon American history and the culture of the time and ties the background and story of the TMNT to be actually rooted in actual events that happened in the recent past and attitudes towards contrivertial topics such as nuclear material.

I think that John sheds an interesting light, on a very well known franchise and popular culture icon in American culture from the 1990s.  I think his article was important in analyzing this one small aspect of popular culture for a particular time period because he points out the social attitudes of American culture at that point in time which is cleverly masked in a popular cartoon and subsequent movies that had influence in shaping most of the people’s opinions about a controversial subject and served as a reminder of recent historical events.  It is interesting to note that there is news of a reboot film by Michael Bay in the works scheduled for release in 2014.  I am curious to see how or if this film will address our culture and recent events that have affected the United States in current times.

 

Reference

Bisges, John (2008) Turtle Power!: How Four Mutant Teenagers Nuked the Entertainment Industry. The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol 41, No. 6, 2008.  Wiley Periodicals, Inc.